The Good, the Bad, and the Funny
by TheAdventuresJustBeginning
Summary: Two normal kids.Four Shadowhunters.One evil villan.Their mission: get to New York no matter what.The problem: demons,Downworldes,and general laziness. A story of everything, nothing and then some. Temp. Hiatus
1. Introduction

_A/N: Okay this is my first FanFiction...well on . I think I might as well just say that. I'm not going to ask you to go easy on me just because of this fact but I do hope that you keep an open mind when you review (because I strongly encourage you to) and give yourselves a chance to get used to my style of writing. Now I acknowledge that not everyone will like my story, heck right now I'm not to sure whether I like it yet or not, but I would hope that you won't review hatefully (ie. OMG this story sucks! You don't deserve to be a writer...blah, blah, blah). So now that that is said it is time to go into something that I've found is a tradition (even though I have no idea why this is a fanfiction website): The disclaimer._

_So, go find someone else's disclaimer, copy and paste [here] print out, season lightly, put between two slices of 16% orange bread, eat, sue stomach for blocked colon._

_Now, onward and upward let us press forward towards brighter beginnings and the light at the end of this long tunnel, let us once and for all try and finish something that which the likes of this good and great world has never seen before! _  
_Collected Story Characters : Yea verily!_

* * *

Chapter One Scratch that Introduction

I looked like a half-drowned cat.

And my homework probably didn't look any better. My uniform was clinging to my skin unflatteringly and my hair hung limply around my shoulders and plastered to my face. The rain just _had_ to decide to pick a Monday to come crashing down – as if they weren't bad enough already! Now all of the hard work I spent on my homework was probably gone, washed away with the raindrops.

As usual I was the last one in the classroom, and also as usual I was a customary ten minutes late. Now I kind of wished I actually started to class with my room-mate and best friend. She probably had all of her homework ready and as crisp as the day we got it.

Professor Sawyer sighed and motioned me over to his desk. Reluctantly I dragged my overstuffed bag across the floor and dropped it at the teacher's feet. "You're late again, Miss Morgan." Professor Sawyer calmly considered the attendance sheet lying face up on his desk. Practically every Monday under my name was marked with a sloppy 'T'.

"Yeah," I said, "rain."

"So I assume you're homework will be considered late as well?"

"Nah," I replied sliding the soggy paper from my bag and presenting it to him with a flourish. "That is, unless you can't read it."

Without saying a thing he accepted the runny page and waved me to my seat. He turned his back to me and began scrawling the day's lesson across the white board. I guess he meant to embarrass me with this sort of attention but all I did was stick my tongue out at his back and began to yank my bag to my seat; the whole way there my soggy lace up boots squelched awkwardly on the tile.

"You look like you drowned," my best and only friend Alicia Grey commented when I plopped into the seat next to her.

I only snorted and wrung my hair out. "I'm sorry I like to sleep in 'kay? God."

"You should at least _try_ to stay on top of your work," Alicia muttered scrawling calculus equations in her notebook. I twirled my mechanical pencil in my hand and watched her.

It was a customary routine I'd grown used to over the years. She'd always finish up her math during homeroom with a pencil in her right hand and worrying one ringlet of hair with her left. I would watch her do the first problem before settling down and doing it myself. So we would continue in this fashion until first period. I wasn't copying her work; I just liked to see her muddle through it before I decided to tackle the almost impossible feat. It was allowed.

Now before we press on I think I should clarify a few details for you. I'd like to tell you that Alicia and I had been special since this story began, but that would be lying. The truth is that while we were both incredibly smart and definitely noticeable, that was more due to the hours of time spent reading instead of hanging around televisions on the weekends; more due to my dress code and Alicia's insane klutziness than popularity.

But saying that we aren't special would be lying too.

I am not going to go into details, you'll find out as the story goes on, so right now I think would be a good time for introductions and the like.

Alicia Grey is, as I've stated before, my best and only friend. We've shared a dorm room together since first year at Redwood Academy so we were really the only people we had to talk to. In a word, Alicia is short. Well actually the more accurate word for her would be klutzy. She's always tripping over her own feet and I think this has something to do with how skinny she is. But I'm not one to judge.

Alicia has a deep red colour hair that I envy. It goes to just past her shoulders and is curled into perfect ringlets that flare up even more when it is humid outside. Still it is beautiful hair, but she doesn't really bother with it. Most people would think she was Irish because of that, she is in fact Indian, this is proved by her caramel tanned skin; she's just weird that way.

Now my name is Lydia Morgan. I'd love to be able to tell you that I was a drop-dead gorgeous chick with a superb sense of style to match, but I can't. I also would like to be able to tell you that I was drop dead ugly but with a hidden talent that makes up for it in the end; that's the only reason why I was even eligible for this adventure. Well that would also be lying and that is something I'm not going to do.

The truth is that my name is Lydia Morgan; I have bleached blonde hair that I dye a million different colours, right now its hot pink, purple, and electric blue, but they're always subject to change. On weekdays it is mandatory that I wear the Academy uniform of white button-downs and green knee-socks, but on the weekends I've got a singular rock style that is all my own. So I stand out but other than that I am completely ordinary.

This will be the last time I address you, the reader…well unless I forget something in which case I will then have to enclose the accidentally discarded information in parentheses but as this is unlikely to happen I will leave you with a fond farewell and then get back to narrating.

But I think we might be able to fast forward to a point a little more interesting…let's say end of the week.

* * *

On Friday afternoons the entire student body of Redwood Academy is allowed into the city for the weekend. For a full two day's you are allowed to do whatever you want provided you are back to school at ten PM sharp.

Alicia held a cup of coffee in her right hand and watched on amused as I hammered the hell out of a crossing button. "Why are we here again?" she questioned for the nth time.

"I told you," – punch – "we're here to act" – slam – "like normal teenagers." I gave it another wallop for good measure then leaned against the peeling grey poll to wait.

Alicia looked me up and down, "Normal teenagers eh?"

"Okay, well when you're as awesome as me you can't be normal, but you know what I mean." We were now crossing the street, this, unfortunately, had nothing to do with my insane awesomeness…or rather lack thereof.

I loosened the tie around my neck, releasing the windpipe crushing knot at the top. I then proceeded to brush my hair out of my face and style it blindly as we approached the park across the street.

"While you're at it," Alicia said, "your boot's untied." I cursed and bent over to re-lace the damn thing. "So, since we're here to act like 'normal teens', what do you propose we do?"

I looked up from my boot. "Ehm…we could, sit on this lovely bench and talk about…whatever it is girls our age, you know, talk about?"

Alicia laughed quietly and sat delicately on the wooden bench I had my foot propped up on.

"So!" I threw myself down on the bench beside her. "What do girls our age talk about?"

The next few minutes can be described with one look that in text can only be described as:

e.0

"No clue."

"Okay."

Another long awkward silence.

See, Alicia is one of those people who have to think about what they say before they say it; otherwise nothing makes sense at all. Me, I just say whatever thing comes to mind. I'm not really used to holding back when it came to my opinion (courtesy of my parent's thank-you-very-much) it got me in a little trouble now and again.

Now was a perfect time to utilize my weapon of speech.

"Do you believe in magic?"

"What?"

"I said," I repeated, "'do you believe in magic?'"

Alicia looked at me like I'd just sprouted two heads, some extra fingers, and a pair of wings for good measure. "No why?"

"Just asking," I replied. "Because with all of this _stuff_," I threw my arms out indicating everything around us and beyond, "you'd think that at least magic would exist."

"Now that would be inadvertently asking me if I believe in God."

"How so?"

"Well, God created all of this," she too spread out her arms, "and you said that at least magic should exist. You were questioning the existence of a creator."

I nodded not really getting it at all. "Well then _do_ you believe in God."

Alicia cocked her head to one side and considered the sky for a moment. "No more than you do."

"And if I were to say I was an atheist?"

She looked surprised. "Are you?"

"Er…no, I don't think so."

"Well then my answer remains the same." She crossed her arms and leaned back as if every question in the world had just been answered.

"So you believe in God, but not magic is that correct?" I asked after another long moment of only the sound of cars zooming by.

Alicia sighed, "And now is the time when you start to force your opinion on me."

"I do not _force_ my opinion on you. I'm merely just…returning the favor. You gave me yours and so now I give you mine."

Alicia threw her hands above her head and sighed. "Oh alright!" she exclaimed. "I give up! Tell me your vision, O Wise One!"

"I'd resent that," I considered, "but it was too pleasing to my ego." I flung my knee up on the bench and turned my torso so that I could face her better. "Okay," I held my hands up, "my theory is this; I think magic exists in all the other universes besides this one and it slowly leaks into _our_ universe over time. Like the leaky faucet in the girls bathroom in the east wing. Eventually enough magic is collected to make something big happen, like make somebody clairvoyant, or telekinetic, or hey, maybe even make a…um…hole in the space/time continuum. A Vortex." As I went on my hands started to get a mind of their own and began to mime whatever it was I was saying with wild gestures. It's the Italian in me.

"Vortex…" Alicia asked.

"Why not?" I questioned. "It would take an enormous amount of energy of course, like the equivalent of five plus lightning bolts, but I don't see why it's not possible. I mean think of it, it would have to be like something that could rip the fabric of space and time but if my theory is correct and that magic is slowly leaking into our universe from others, and I really think it is, then once that energy ignites the magic it'll be like an atomic bomb. BAM!" I clapped my hands together sharply. "A vortex."

Alicia raised a questioning eyebrow. "And how would the magic ignite?"

"The fabric of two universes crashing together," I answered confidently.

Alicia rolled her eyes and sighed. "I really don't get you Lydia, you're a complete science fanatic, yet you love religion, and you believe in magic."

"I do not _love _religion. In fact I hate it." I contradicted. "I just like questioning it and making people question their beliefs. It doesn't hurt to be open minded."

Alicia shook her head at my argumentiveness and stood up stretching her arms over her head. "Well I don't know about you, but it's getting late and if we don't want to end up having to sleep on the streets we'd better be headed back to the Academy." She started walking in a westward direction.

I followed suit pulling up beside her and swinging my arms in a carefree fashion. "I don't know, I think sleeping on the street might build character."

"You're so strange!"

"You wouldn't like me otherwise."

* * *

Well at the snails pace we were going at it seemed very likely that we'd be sleeping on the dirt road to the Academy.

Unfortunately being students at a boarding school meant that we were kind of dirt poor, I mean our families were rich considering they'd been able to send us to Redwood in the first place, but we didn't exactly get _allowance_ for getting A's on major tests. And we didn't have _jobs_ to go to like normal teenagers our age since we couldn't leave campus during the school week unless signed out by a proven relative.

This is my lengthy way of saying we were too freaking poor to get a cab.

"Hu! What was that?" Alicia spun around. It had gotten darker the last mile and so we'd both started hallucinating imaginary noises.

"Just me," I grunted lifting the heel of my boot from a hole in the path. I craned my head around behind me and shielded my eyes from the small slice of sun still peeking over the horizon. "Ugh, at this rate we're going to have to find a nice tree to hole up in for the night."

"It's your fault you know," Alicia insisted and continued to walk on. "You were the one who insisted we find a trash can."

"Hey, we can't have you littering can we? Bad habits grow more serious as time goes on, leaving a cup on the side of the road one day will turn into having your half of the room as messy as mine, and we can't have that."

"You speak from experience then?" she wondered.

"Yup," I answered and started skipping. "Damn those gum wrappers."

Alicia chuckled at that and we continued on in companionable silence.

Soon trees began to loom around us on the dirt path turning deep reds and oranges as the autumn season went on. I kicked a pile stacked under a branch out of my way and watched as they scattered. The darkness deepened as the last sliver of sun disappeared turning the road to black and making it almost impossible to see. I looked up at the sky and found Ursa Major right away, other than that I was completely useless at astronomy.

Alicia reached into her small purse and brought out her cell phone and flipped it open. "Nine-thirty," she informed me, then she spun the phone around in her palm to illuminate the road, an impromptu flashlight. "And so far we're nowhere near school grounds."

"Aw, well that doesn't mean we still don't have time left. Let us press onward."

"And then there are the times when you're just too optimistic for your own good," Alicia sighed.

I groaned and spun around to face her, "Look if you're going to keep complaining about how bad a friend I am, then why are you still here?"

"I did not say you were a bad friend!" Alicia exclaimed.

"It was certainly implied!" I shot.

"How could you accuse me of something like that? You know all too well I don't have any other friends!"

"Are you going to blame me for that too?"

Alicia's next accusations were drowned out by the roaring of the wind swirling around us. But we continued yelling. It was one of those best friend moments when you both are so tired you don't care to listen.

"It _is _your fault…!"

"…I'd never…!"

"Things just don't _happen_!"

_**CRACK!**_

The sound of something snapping, the wind picking up tenfold, so fast my hair was whipping all around us flying out of its restraints. It swirled around us like we were in a tornado ripping at my clothes and un-tucking my shirt. I screamed. The kind of scream that is reserved for truly terrifying situations was tearing out of my throat.

"LYDIA!"

"ALICIA!"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One: In Which It All Begins and Cliffhangers Start

I'd like to say I had the courage to at least open my eyes and scream like a dignified lunatic, but really, I squeezed my eyes shut, curled up into a fetal position, and screamed like an undignified lunatic. The wind kept up its terrifying one hundred million miles an hour and continued to spin me like a top. I quickly lost any sense of direction I had had in the first place and I was aware I was crying for my mommy at the top of my lungs.

Like I said; a _very_ undignified lunatic.

_God! Allah! Buddha! Any deity out there! I'm sorry, I'll never fight with Alicia again! Please just let us out of here!_

This is when I crashed into something hard, my forehead smashed into something just as hard, then careened into what felt like a boulder. I soon realized that it was just someone else's skull. We were a tangle of limbs. Shouts of alarm, screams of pain, and elaborate profanities blended together until you got something like this:

"Ouch –"

"…that was..."

*elbows in mouth*

"_Shit_!"

"Clary!"

*gets kicked in head*

"…I didn't!"

"MOMMY!" (Me obviously)

"Aw…!"  
************************************************************************

I must use these asterisks to edit out the _very_ violent language that occurs during the next four minutes or so and would turn this into a rated M story.

Because I can not give an accurate timeline for how long I was caught in that whirlwind I'll just skip to when I was unceremoniously dumped out.

There was a loud crashing and crumbling around me as I turned circles in midair. I all of a sudden found myself freefalling…

…right into a chandelier.

Let me just say that it is one thing to loose your breath over something astonishing, it is another thing entirely to have the wind knocked out of you, by crashing into a metal chandelier. My stomach slammed into the metal rim and I went tumbling head over heels over the side my ankle getting caught in the dangling crystals.

Skirts don't defy gravity for the sake of their owners like they do in movies.

And arms don't quite like fixing skirts while upside down.

It stands to reason that great halls full of teenagers get a kick at seeing someone strung up by a chandelier upside down with a skirt pointing in the same direction.

My life sucks.

I jerked around for a couple of seconds trying to free myself from the tangles of crystals when I realized that this might not be in my best interest.

The crystals slithered off my ankle and it seemed like a couple of seconds before gravity kicked in and dropped me. A couple of seconds, enough for me to say "uh-oh". I landed on my head and snapped my neck.

I am very glad this is not what happened.

Instead it went something a little bit like this.

There were more people than just Alicia lying on the floor. In fact there were at least four other people with her. She was sprawled out on top of someone, a boy by the look of it.

"Clary?" he grunted spitting out a mouthful of Alicia's hair.

Alicia was blinking and squinting up at the chandelier which had begun to swing me casually back and forth. Again I began to struggle with my skirt; curse you gravity! "Who's Clary?" she asked.

To the left of those two came another voice, "I am." It said and up sat a girl with red hair almost like Alicia's but a shade or two lighter. Ah…red hair…easy mistake.

"Okay," said Blondie (aka dude Alicia was on top of), "now that we've established that, would you mind getting the _hell off me_?"

Now while this was all very entertaining, I was still hanging upside down on a chandelier and everyone hadn't yet gotten over the hilarity of that fact.

"Hey!" I shouted. "I understand that you have your own issues down there but, CAN SOMEBODY HELP ME PLEASE!"

The four – five actually upon later reflection – people finally seemed to take notice of me and their heads snapped upward. Along with Blondie and the red-headed Clary there were two others whom I didn't recognize; the first was a ridiculously beautiful girl with Indian ink hair the complete opposite to mine and the second was a tall guy with the same black hair, because there seriously is no other way for me to describe him.

Blondie smirked. I mean really _smirked_. I do not believe I have ever seen anybody genuinely _smirk_ before. I've seen snickers and half-smiles and even scoffs, but I don't think I've seen someone _smirk_ and not look completely demented. Kind of like when I try to raise my eyebrow, completely embarrassing facial expressions.

I can't say I was happy at what he was smirking at. "Yo, blondie, wipe that smile off your face and DO SOMETHING!" God man.

Blackie Boy grunted and pulled himself to his feet. "Jump," he instructed, "I'll catch you."

He didn't look like he'd be able to catch a stick and stand up straight. "It's the jumping that's the problem!" I yelled back down jerking my foot around in the crystals. All of the blood was starting to rush to my head making me kind of dizzy and that was kind of…bad, for lack of a better word. Sometimes simple is best.

Blondie rolled his eyes. "Give it another good tug!" he called. "You'll fall right out."

I would've rather waited for a latter or better yet a crane, but I would die if I stayed the wrong way up for much longer.

Let me just say that it is _very_, wait scratch that, _extremely_ difficult to yank your foot whilst hanging upside down by said foot. Gravity is not your friend, it never has been and it never will be, get used to it, but learn to work quickly, that's all that I learned from this experience. It was a good thing I had more lower than upper body strength, had the opposite occurred I would've been screwed. I was able to bend my knee awkwardly and drop my whole weight on the chandelier about twice before it finally tugged free of the arm and I was freefalling…again.

I am happy to report that the decent was a little more dignified than the last. I think the only word that had time to come out of my mouth was "fu-" and then I landed on Blackie Boy before sending us both to the ground.

Everything, from the entrance to this event took about one minute.

This was as long as it took for the teachers to organize themselves.

Then they pounced.

All of the teachers in the great hall (about twenty-six of them) crowded around us. They were all yelling at the top of their lungs, demanding to know our names, which year were we in, and what in the _world_ did we think we were doing. I have to admit after about the first syllable I was too frightened to listen too much else. Until this happened.

"HEADMISTRISSES OFFICE NOW!'

Well damn.

_I am a mouse, a speck of dust, I am too small to see, microscopic, better yet I am invisible. I cannot be seen there is nothing that can see me I am hidden, completely and utterly hidden._

Or at least that is what I was telling myself. I had shrunk back into the uncomfortable wooden chair as far as I was able. I could not aspire to be any smaller than I had already made myself. The headmistresses, a very strict looking lady with a ballerina type bun and a big mole on her upper lip and a personality like a million vipers (picture the worst and ugliest teachers you've ever had. Mix them together and times that image by about a hundred, then you have about what Headmistress Fraser looks like).

Now on the whole the Headmistresses office wasn't that foreboding. In fact it looked almost cozy. There was cherry hardwood flooring, two giant red-brown armchairs the colour of Alicia's hair on fabric, currently they were occupied by Clary and Blondie (his name was Jace but I might refer to him as Blondie when I'm feeling mean, which trust me will be frequent enough). The walls were painted green, not neon, or puke green, but that calming Barnes and Noble green in just a shade lighter, and speaking of Barnes and Nobel (best bookstore on the planet!) there were towering floor-to-ceiling bookshelves overflowing with hardcovers. Very cozy actually, there was even a fire in the fireplace. Unfortunately it was only cozy when the headmistress wasn't in the room. See, Headmistress Fraser is someone to watch out for, she can make even the warmest room frosty and if she was on the warpath – which in this case she was – then duck and cover and prepare for frostbite and below zero temperatures.

Right then I wasn't even the one being yelled at and I was still cowering in fear. Jace, Clary, Isabelle (Blackie Girl), and Alec (Blackie Boy) were the ones being screamed at because they didn't even go to this _school_ and they decided to help _us_ destroy school property. Excuse me? What property exactly did we destroy?

I was too paralyzed to ask this, as was Alicia who – usually playing the wimp with no strength – had a death grip on my forearm.

What amazed me was that everyone else, apart from Clary I guess, looked completely unfazed. There were signs of tension coming from every one of them but in general they looked like they would fall asleep any moment.

"Excuse me for just a second!" Headmistress Fraser scolded.

Translation: I'm going to call the authorities.

Wow.

Anyway as soon as Headmistress Fraser swept out of the office and into the adjoining room that was probably where she slept everyone relaxed instantly. I let out a loud gust of breath (nearly started a hurricane I tell you) and Alicia's hand slithered off my arm dropping to her side with an audible "flop".

"Forget it lady." Jace commented absently. "You can't scare us, we slay demons."

"Say what?" Alicia asked.

The four new characters seemed to notice that we were actually in the room. I guess my Chant-O-Invisibility worked.

"It's a metaphor where we come from, which we aren't anymore," Alec lied. Yeah he lied big time…or so we find out in the next five minutes. "Why is that?"

Alicia gave me a Look. A Look which in this case meant: _I-Cannot-Believe-Your-Stupid-Ass-Scratch-That-Unbelieveable-Theory-Worked-Since-It-Was-Yours-You-Tell-Them._

Everyone looked at me intently, so intently in fact, that I started to get really self-conscious and fidgety, which believe me _never_ happens. "Ehm," was my intelligent start. Yeah everyone would believe me now, stupid [insert facepalm]. "Magic."

Cue ten seconds of silence in which you _know_ everyone is thinking "she's crazy".

"Magic?" Jace questioned. "Is that all?" It sounded that this was the answer he was expecting.

"Er yeah…" I said feeling now even more fidgety, if possible. "A…er…rip in the space/time continuum…I think," I added. While I really wanted my theory to be true, my Weird-Shit-O-Meter was yelling at me that there was something worse to this than just my Vortex thing. Something bad was happening.

"So we just fell through a portal at the same time you were using it and we all were thrown back to where you guys entered." Isabelle said sensibly. "Makes sense."

Dude, was this an everyday occurrence for them? Seriously? What was _wrong_ with these people a rip _in the space/time continuum_…who in their right minds would believe that! Now I'm not in my right mind about three fourths the time so I have an excuse. These guys were acting like they were _never_ in their right minds. (And have you noticed that this chapter is so _unbelievable _that I've been using an _insane_ amount of italics?)

"Wait you believe me?" I blinked rapidly in disbelief.

"Sure," Isabelle said. "You're Shadowhunters right, or Downworlders?"

I suddenly felt very claustrophobic.

"Downawhozits? Shadowwhatsits?" Alicia asked.

_Now _common sense seemed to have caught up with these guys because _now_ they looked properly confused.

"Wait, you're _mundies_?" Alec's mouth dropped.

"What the hell is a mundie?"

Jace was calm, all things considered, when he replied. "Someone who isn't an Angel, Demon, Shadowhunter, or Downworlder."

Now I felt like I was suffocating. I watched this scene with the growing uncomfortable sensation of not being able to breathe. I took in a deep breath through my mouth and happened to catch Clary's eye.

She was tugging at the collar of her t-shirt, her eyes narrowed in a way that suggested she was having trouble breathing too.

That's when I looked at the door.

There was a big plume of black mist leaking from the cracks of the door Headmistress Fraser had disappeared into. Uh-oh…Demons…teachers are out to kill us…

"Um, guys," Clary said elbowing Jace and calling everyone's attention to the door.

I looked at Jace, "What was that you said about demons?"


	3. Chapter 2

_Okay for all of you who are reading this story I'm sorry I haven't been able to write for a while, it's not that I haven't had time it's just that I have trouble with chapters such as this one aka Filler Chapters. So this isn't going to be my best chapter, I've done my best to make it entertaining but really, don't expect much. Ummm...please review I like feedback and whatnot on my stories and stuff, and despite the fact that I have bearly started on this one, another idea just popped in my head this weekend and I've started writing it so...be sure to check it out I'll probably post it as soon as it has a name O_O.  
Happy Reading._

_

* * *

_

Chapter Two: How to Misplace a Magical Vortex otherwise known as The Filler Chapter

So. What do you do when faced with a thick black cloud of smoke? Do you…

a) scream

b) panic

c) spazz or

d) all of the above?

Well, personally I didn't do any of the above. What I did was simply stand there in pure terror and disbelief and try to pretend that this was one-hundred percent normal.

Yeah, right. Like this was and would ever be normal.

Jace was out of his chair and pushing Clary over to me and Alicia in two seconds of registering the smoke. Isabelle pulled a golden whip out of nowhere and Jace tossed Alec a knife.

Apparently this _was_ normal for some people.

We all watched the door with baited breath wanting to see what would come through it yet cursing human curiosity for having to know.

Now the logical thing would have been to start screaming, the moral thing would have been to get everyone out of the room and before running out myself, the smart thing would have been to screw everyone else and save my own skin. But I couldn't even get over the shock of seeing the smoke.

"M-maybe it's a fire," I thought aloud.

"With no heat or flames?" Alec asked. "Are you as oblivious as you look?"

I was ready to kill him. "Look I'm just trying to comfort myself! Don't patronize me!"

"Look out!"

Needless to say I had no time to "look out", because warnings like that always come too late therefore the next thing I was aware of was that bookshelves – when having been thrown into them – hurt. That and doors and peoples faces don't really mix.

I fell forward on top of the door and my head snapped up. The black mist was filling the room. And it was exactly what I said it was. Black mist. You can't kill mist.

Isabelle flicked her whip out and it flashed gold, but passed straight through the plume of smoke. Alicia had started to scream but she had also started throwing whatever she could at the thing. Unlike me she seemed to have been sent into a full blown panic mode that made her take up the offensive act right away. She threw whatever she could get her hands on. She began tearing books off the shelves, hell she even attempted to toss the desktop at the smoke but even in an adrenaline fit Alicia isn't that strong. Heaven help us all the day she is.

"It's not working!" I yelled.

"Yeah," Alec said. "Got that one."

"How do you kill smoke?" I volleyed.

Jace was backing up staying as far away from the black shapeless mass as possible. "You don't," he replied calmly before gripping Clary and Alicia's forearms and shoving them towards the office door.

Isabelle and Alec were out of the room faster than bullets from a gun. It took me a second to realize that this left me alone. With the demon mist. You're great guys, really.

"Hey! WAIT FOR ME!"

* * *

I'm not sure how long we actually ran but I can tell you for sure it was a _helluva_ long time; we were halfway to the city before we actually decided to stop.

Adrenaline really is a wonderful thing.

I doubled over and drew in deep ragged breaths. I was weak in the knees and definitely paler than usual. Sweat dripped down my back and beaded across my forehead and I felt pretty damn sick.

"What…the hell…was…th…_that_?" I asked between large gulps of air. I straightened out and took another deep lungful of air. I pushed my bangs out of the way and lifted my hair off my neck twisting it into a shaggy bun with the hair-tie at my wrist, and let the breeze cool the back of my neck.

No one answered me. Instead though, Jace grabbed my shoulder and jerked me roughly around to face him. "That portal we came through," he said urgently, "where is it?"

"What?"

"The 'vortex' _where is it_?"

It was Alicia who answered this time. "Down that way a bit," she pointed towards town. "I think. Why?"

"Because we need to get to back to New York, pronto," he replied.

"I don't understand why you're bothering to tell them this," Isabelle said coiling her whip around her arm. "It's not as if they should know in the first place, they're mundies."

Clary tilted her head to one side, "Well, they could have been raised that way." She said pointedly. "I was."

I laughed harshly, "We were raised by that boarding school, with that dragon, or should I say demon, lady as our headmistress for our entire lives. Our stories are sad ones filled with families stumbling upon unexpected fortunes and being able to afford so much more than they ever had, and not wanting to take along their poor children they dumped us off at Redwood and then went on their merry way. My parents are somewhere in the Caribbean, last time I checked anyway, which was about a month ago. You may pity us now."

There was silence.

"Harsh," Clary finally commented.

"Well now's no time for it," Jace irritably crossed his arms. "We need to find that portal. Something very bad is going to happen soon if we don't get to the Institute in time."

"Well then," I said. I stepped up and gave him a mock salute. "Lieutenant Sarcasm reporting for duty Capitan Obvious SIR!"

"Oh, boy," Alicia smacked her forehead.

"Let's just get going," Alec sighed.

Those two would get along just fine.

* * *

"Vortex! Vortex!"

"It's around here somewhere I'm sure of it."

"Yeah look there's that pile of leaves, and the gopher hole."

"VOOOOR-TEEEEXX!"

Blondie threw his hands up in the air. "I don't believe it, they lost it!"

"We didn't loose anything!" I shot back. "We just…eh, misplaced it is all."

Clary shook her head. "How do you misplace a magical vortex?"

"Uhhh…"

Alec kicked another pile of leaves out of his way. "Well this certainly isn't working."

"Hey!" I shouted at him. "We don't even know where the damn thing came from; don't expect it to show up at our beck and call."

"It should still be here, whether you left it or not." Isabelle said.

"Maybe this is a different type?" Alicia offered.

Blondie scoffed, "If this is the kind of portal I think it is then it should still be here."

"Well obviously it's not the kind of portal you thought it was," I snapped. My head hurt, I had been strung upside down by a chandelier, almost killed by a smoke demon, and ran a marathon or two. My day sucked. Blondie was _not_ making it any better.

"Seriously, how do you lose a portal?" Clary questioned.

I stamped my foot on the ground. "I don't _know_" – stamp – "you just _do_!" I held my hands to my forehead and rubbed my face. I wasn't in the mood to be criticized my theory was true. There was a rip in the space/time continuum and it had dumped some people from another universe off…

…and it could move.

"Look," Isabelle said. "We're all a little on edge and that demon could be following us, in fact it could be watching us right now." She turned to Alicia and I, "There was an Institute where we were originally, New York," she explained. "It looked like a big gothic church. Are there any such buildings here, we could check for Institutes. They'd have to let us in."

"That's a good plan B Isabelle," Jace complimented.

The Shadowhunters I think they called themselves, all looked at Alicia and I expectantly.

"There are a couple of churches in town," I offered. "It's worth a shot."

"Well then c'mon."


	4. Chapter 3

_Yea! It is official! I have a total of two reviews on this story! *does victory dance* I think two reviews is a cause for celebration. If you do not agree than that is your problem. Anways...um...hmm...okay._

_absolutelywounderful:__ Thank you for reviewing and reading this story. I'm glad you think my writing style is funny because that is what I'm going for this particular story though it will get more serious later on. Spoliers, suspense? Not sure what that was right there. Um, and thanks for the support on Chapter Two I honestly didn't think it was that good._

_So please review. I love feedback and enjoy the fourth enstalment (third chapter, Prologues/Intros make everything weird) of The Vortex. (Really stupid name might change it but probably won't)._

* * *

Chapter Three: Pull a House and Half and Acre of Land

_Knock, knock._

Nothing.

About three hours later:

_Knock, knock._

Still nothing.

Another hour later:

_Kno-_

"I give up!" I threw my hands in the air and stomped over to the curb cutting Jace off in mid-knock. I dropped onto the concrete lump and rested my elbows on my bare knees.

"I gave up a long time ago," Clary sighed and sat down next to me. "It's obvious there's no Institutes here, and there's no demon following us. I say we call it night."

I yawned my body agreeing with me, but I was way past exhaustion. "I'd agree with you," I said, "but _where_ exactly would you be planning on turning in. I don't know about you guys but I am _not_ going anywhere _near_ Redwood."

Alec, Isabelle, and Alicia approached us from across the street. "Have you guys finished banging down church doors?" Isabelle asked.

I ran a hand through my hair and glared through my bangs at Alicia, "I suppose you're done pretending you don't know me."

Alicia chuckled lightly and gripped my wrists trying to haul me to my feet and failing epically. "Ugh!" she groaned. "You've been digging into the chocolate again haven't you?"

"And it was good," was all I had to say. I wasn't in the mood really. I was beyond exhaustion which basically meant I was comatose to the point of being completely detached.

Jace came up behind us and considered the cars whizzing past us at a blurring speed. In fact I think it is safe to say that he spaced out. He just stood there staring at the bright lights almost as if beyond caring.

"So what now?" Alec asked taking a sip from a Styrofoam cup and flinching slightly as predictably hot liquid scorched his throat. He looked expectantly at Alicia and I, "You're the mundies with the know-how on this city. Do something."

"Like what?" I asked. "Magically produce a suitable house out of the void that's in my pocket along with a good acre and a half of land for it to sit on?"

Jace continued to stare unblinkingly at the cars but spoke up. "That would be nice thanks."  
I groaned and dropped my head to my knees throwing my arms over my head. "Dear Agony," I began, "Today you have been particularly annoying. I must request that you relinquish your outstandingly dominant role on my life. Thank-you. Good-night."

I yawned again. "Anyone have any cash?" Alicia asked. "There might be a cheap motel somewhere around here; if not then we're going to have to play hobo and bunk out in an alley or something." Well at least someone's brain is still working.

Everyone shook their heads. No cash? Okay then. Time for plan B.

I've never slept in a park before, but something told me that this would become commonplace for me in the near future.

I turned over again in the grass. Alicia was somewhere in the tree above me though I was more than seventy percent sure she'd fall out and break her neck if she actually fell asleep. Clary was curled up in a ball on her side but seemed to be faring just fine and all the Shadowhunters were sleeping peacefully, if not with a little more tossing and turning than I supposed was normal.

Now, in my experience when you are tired enough you can sleep just about anywhere, but the fact that we had a smoke demon after us was keeping my eyes open despite my definite fatigue. Under any normal circumstances I would've dropped dead a long time ago. Then again, since when has any of this ever been normal? My head was swimming, overwhelmed with all of this new information that was rejected by my logical brain.

I knocked the back of my head against the hard ground a couple of times and curled up further in my coat to try and ward off the nighttime chill. When I was a little more comfortable than I had been I began to recite what I knew for sure about everything starting from the simplest things to the more complicated aspects.

_My name is Lydia Morgan. I am sixteen years old and a student at Redwood Academy, run by Headmistress Fraser who happened to be a smoke demon from hell. Not that I didn't have my suspicions about that myself but having it proved- Wait shut it Lyd. No thinking down that direction not yet. _

_Okay, again. Run by Headmistress Fraser. My best friend is Alicia Grey who is sleeping in a tree above me because we're too scared to go back to the school run by the evil smoke - Screw it!_

An obvious fail on my part.

I rolled over onto my back and tried to find some stars in the sky to count. Didn't work, considering we were in the middle of a city stars were hard to come by.

"Arg!" I yelled in aggravation. I sat up, straight as a board, and began to pick the grass in front of me.

So since my brain refused to let go of all the impossible things that had happened to me, I decided to go humor it and think about them.

I could almost laugh at myself. A sixteen year old private school student, sitting cross-legged on a patch of dead city grass which was supposed to be her designated bed for the night, thinking about impossible things, and more than that, deciding to believe in them.

So, apparently, Alicia and I had a magical portal following us around. Okay, that just proved my theory about the magical leaks. This I could accept fairly painlessly. Just to prove to myself that I had accepted this I decided to dub it the Vortex – capital 'v' because I decided that it was its name. So there was the Vortex, now what? Okay, the Vortex had decided to suck us up in the middle of a country lane, and then drop us off in the middle of Redwood's great hall with a couple of new friends. This also wasn't so hard to accept because the proof of that was all around me in the form of Jace, Clary, Alec, and Isabelle. Then there was Demon Fraser which I didn't even want to get into.

The real question was, were they from this universe? Because I was a normal human I wouldn't know whether or not anything these people were saying was true, since I really had no idea. But I was about eighty percent sure that this was not the case. I sincerely believed that they were from a different universe. Besides, even if they really only turned out to have come from New York that might as well have been another universe for how far away from it we were. To get there we'd have to travel cross-country.

But I was still caught up on the idea that they were from another world. If I laid out all the facts in front of me that's what it amounted to. They came from the Vortex (cheesy B-rated movie name, I called it), the Vortex was magical, and Alicia and I were certainly still in _our_ hometown. Unfortunately, there was one major flaw in my logic, and that was the fact that Headmistress Fraser was a person I'd known practically all my life and hadn't really changed one bit, except for the wrinkles she collected over the years. She would have had to have been a demon this whole time for her to have been one now. Unless a demon came out of the Vortex with us and had possessed her, or killed her before coming after us, but that was highly unlikely.

My mind started to follow that train of thought. But if it were to have happened…I thought, what else might have come out of the Vortex with her.

That did it. That scared me shitless. I looked around, peering into the dark shadows and scooting back against the trunk of the tree and trying to make myself as small as possible.

Alec, Jace, Clary, and Isabelle came out of the Vortex. But what else might have followed them?


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: The Good, the Bad, and Headmistress Fraser

He rubbed his head where it had been smashed against the side of the teacher's bedside table. An egg had started to from just over his right eye, angry red in colour and still slightly throbbing in irritation.

Growling in frustration he shoved himself out of the chair behind the desk and began to pace around the now chaotic room. Broken knick-knacks and hardcover books lay scattered across the room having violently been torn from their original places. A lot like the door his shoes were currently walking over. His eyes traveled around the room as his mind reeled with possibilities of what in the world could have happened when they came to rest upon on of the broken trinkets at his feet. Bending down he picked it up and discovered it was a nametag; the name most likely belonging to the now dead teacher.

_Headmistress Fraser_.

Not a particularly nice name, he thought. And judging by the excessive amounts of yelling he had heard before she had entered the room he'd found himself suddenly occupying she wasn't a particularly nice person.

He tossed the nametag over his shoulder roughly and continued his heated journey across the length of the room. His frustration could be summed up in multiple complex ways but put quite simply his anger came from one thing.

Things had not gone as planned.

Being who he was he always took such painstaking care to make sure that things were in the best conditions he could hope for before performing dangerous task. So this meant that things _always_ worked out the way he planned. He wasn't cocky, he was just confident in his abilities to see ahead farther than his opponent, he had, after all, been planning ahead roughly seventeen years.

The fact that for once something _hadn't _worked out as he'd planned angered him. Only one time in his life had things not worked out in his favour, and even then he realized his mistakes and had planned ahead to make sure that when he tried again, because he was going to try again nothing short of death would keep him down, things would go the way he saw them going. Sure he knew his opponent might have a few wild cards, and things that might just throw him off course, but he was confident in his ability to take these in stride an ultimately hurdle them with little effort.

Okay, so he was a little cocky. But he wasn't arrogant and, unlike others before him, he _had_ considered the possibility of him loosing. Of course, in the event of that happening he also had prepared a successor to continue in his footsteps after he was gone.

So yes, he was a very prepared man. Unfortunately this was a situation he was _not_ prepared for at all. He hadn't even considered the possibility that, in summoning the demon, he could get sucked into an alternate dimension himself. Had he known this was possible he would have been more cautious than he had been.

The good news though, if there had to be any, was that he didn't seem to have actually _left_ his home dimension. In fact, he only seemed to have traveled back to the United States. He was nowhere near New York as far as he could tell and he didn't know how near to a portal he was, but with enough luck he could get back to Idris and the Mortal Cup—which had not followed in his wake—in a jiffy.

Not that he needed luck.

All he needed to do was avoid the group of teenagers that had been here an hour ago. No luck required.

With a cold smile starting to curl his lips and a plan formulating itself in his mind, Valentine swept out of the room. His destination, New York City.

Morning came as slow as molasses, and when it did come, it came in the form of wet, grey, and freezing.

It had begun to drizzle just a bit about five minutes earlier but the arms of the tree had shielded the snoozing Shadowhunters and prevented them from waking. I hadn't heard a peep from Alicia so I assumed that the percentages had unexpectedly worked out in her favour and she was sleeping soundly in the tree. I, on the other hand, was still curled up in a fetal position against the trunk of the tree, facing forward my eyes wide and unblinking.

I hadn't slept a wink; too many scary thoughts about what could have followed the Shadowhunters had been pinging around my head.

Clary was the first one up. She groaned and rolled onto her back to face the grey sky latticed with the tree branches. "I'm never sleeping on the ground again," she complained.

Alec was up now as well he shook his head as if trying to clear away the grogginess. "We might not have a choice all things considered."

Jace was awake next. He was on his feet immediately stretching luxuriously like a cat and I heard his bones crack loudly. I had enough decency to wince; I'd never liked listening to people cracking their fingers, neck, ankles, back, whatever. It was a major pet peeve of mine probably brought on by the fact that my knees were constantly popping in and out of their sockets.

"Hey guys!" It was Alicia from up in the tree. Her sentence was punctuated by a yawn that suggested either she had not enough, no, or too much sleep. My votes go to number two or the former, unless you are a squirrel or something of their ilk there is no way you can sleep comfortably in a tree. "A little help here."

Out of mere curiosity I was able to crane my head around to spy Alicia straddling a tree branch looking around helplessly trying to find a way down. Haha Alicia, haha.

"It seems as though you've found it easier to climb trees than it is to get down from them," Jace commented.

"No," I said. "Trees are really easy to get down from, its just most people have enough common sense to not climb the tree in the first place, or enough self-preservation to wear armor in preparation for jumping out of them."

"Hardy-har-har, you guys," Alicia growled. "Seriously though, I don't _think_ that far ahead! Now, _help me down_!"

Now this whole situation was very amusing, especially since, considering my position, I was watching the whole thing upside-down, but this only succeeded in reminding me of my own unfortunate experience upside-down, and by default, what it eventually lead to.

Not the best way to start a morning, sleep or no.

"So what's on the agenda for today?" I asked forcing myself to put those thoughts out of my mind and finding myself more successful than I had been the night before. "Are we gonna storm more churches?"

No one acknowledged me despite my obvious try at pretending everything was normal.

"Maybe we should go back to that school," Isabelle suggested. "Check and make sure that demon didn't do anything he'll regret." I could tell she was looking for someone to take her frustration out on.

"Not to be rude or anything but, if you could've killed it last night then why didn't you? It seems to me that you are as incapable of killing a pillar of mist as any normal human being." Alicia pointed out.

I turned to my best friend still trying to find her way out of the tree. As I watched her try to scramble for a foothold her foot found a particularly slippery splotch of wetness and down she went.

Right onto our good friend Blondie.

Again.

"Is this going to become a theme with you?" Jace asked irritably pushing Alicia off him.

"Now that I'm thinking about it," I said. "Maybe it wasn't a demon at all; maybe it was just a cloud of smoke."

Alec sighed. "And there she goes. Mundane as ever, trying to make sense of something that obviously doesn't."

"At least hear me out before you put me down as 'stupid' and completely reject my theory," I snapped at him, annoyed. I rubbed my eyes and then faced all of them. "I didn't get any sleep last night because I kept thinking about Headmistress Fraser and how I've known her my entire life—well mostly, but that's not the point—and how in that time nothing ever suggested to me that she was, literally, a demon. There was nothing, she chaperoned at school field trips in broad daylight, she adored all things Charles Dickens and was a fan of Harlequin Romances as much as any woman of her age would be expected to be. Even she hated the school uniforms that the teachers were forced to wear and would've done away with them I bet if the school board would've allowed her. So, there was nothing saying she wasn't anything other than your normal strict headmistress following her handbook.

"Now, what got me thinking was that, if she was just a normal human then what was that plume of smoke? If it was a demon then where did it come from? What got me thinking was what else came out of the Vortex? It might not have just been you guys you know. Who or what else followed you?"

The Shadowhunters exchanged glances with each other.

"We're definitely gonna have to go back to that school, aren't we?" Clary asked.

"Yeah," Jace replied. "We need to find out what followed us."

"And after that?" Alec questioned.

"We could go to the Institute," I suggested.

"It's all the way in New York!" Alicia said.

"No she's right," Jace agreed. Score one for me. "We need somewhere to go and since there's no portal to take us there we're going to have to start on foot and use public transportation when we can."

"Sounds reasonable," Isabelle nodded. "I say we go for it."

"So we're traveling cross-country," Alicia moaned. "Great, just let me get my shoes on and then we can see what kind of important monuments I knock down along the way."

I laughed. "C'mon Alicia it'll be fun!"

"Um, I don't remember saying you could come," Jace said.

"You didn't need to." I replied. "It seems a little obvious to me that you've never been outside New York, and even if you have been you've used a portal to get wherever you're going never your own two feet. You don't know this place like we do, face it Blondie, _you'll need our help._ Even if we don't get out of that death-trap of a school much we still know this place better than you do. We've had time to learn some tricks, and, if I remember correctly and I'm sure I do, you're flat broke and don't have any money to buy a map."

"Who said stealing was below us?" Jace questioned.

He had me there. "Okay, so you steal a map and then what? I really don't care if you can make it there on your own. We're coming with you. You came through _our_ Vortex, and you threw _us_ into this whole mess! We're coming with you, case closed." I grabbed Alicia's hand; "Now c'mon, we need to go check out Redwood _before_ I loose my bravado."


	6. Chapter 5

_Okay, so there are a few thing's I'd like to address. The first thing is that I'm not going to be updating as much as usual. Something happened to my computer a while back and I want to make absolutely sure that it wasn't FanFiction's fault (though I'm pretty sure its not *raspberries*). Anyways, um, here's Chapter Five of _The Vortex_ yea! Thanks to all of you who reviewed. _

**absolutelywonderful: **thanks for the support on the third installment I think it was I still don't think it was that good but thanks.

**MissMurderer7834:** I'm glad you like it. I'm sorry this wasn't what you'd call "soon".

_Er…the last line is a French saying, if you know _Doctor Who _than you'll recognize it. It means "let's go" or something along those lines. Happy reading._

* * *

Chapter Five: Heavy Skinny People

I sure hope I hadn't gotten anybody lost.

We were still looking for Redwood. Now under normal circumstances I'd've been able to find my way back to boarding-school-of-hell like it was second nature. But I have a very good excuse for loosing track of a way that I've known since grade-school: these were not normal circumstances.

I had lost my bravado a couple of miles ago, and I had needed sleep long before then. So we can conclude that I was scared stiff at going back to Redwood, and too tired to process any information, therefore I wasn't paying any attention to getting us back, and nor did I particularly want to.

I threw another look over my shoulder. Behind me there was only Alicia whose eyes kept fluttering shut and whose feet kept tripping over invisible obstacles in the road.

I turned my eyes back to the road and yawned, the yawn was quickly followed by another slap to the face, something I'd been doing since we'd set out.

"Are you _sure_ we're going the right way?" Alec questioned rudely from my right.

"Just," yawn/slap "follow the leader." Another yawn/slap face.

Jace stared at me curiously his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Why do you keep doing that?"

I yawned through the word "what" and proceeded to slap my face a number of times before glancing at him questioningly.

"That," was all he said.

I yawned again, and slapped my face twice for good measure. Blinking back tears and sniffing back another yawn I answered, "So I don't end up like ninja squirrel back there." I threw my thumb over my shoulder at Alicia.

Jace followed the line of my thumb. Clary and Isabelle were supporting a comatose Alicia between them. As we were watching Isabelle stumbled and shot me a glare as though my friend falling asleep on her feet was my fault. My great genius comeback was to do a particularly loud yawn and slap my face again.  
"For the record," she grunted, "I elected to leave her behind."

I looked at Jace, "I don't want to be deadweight." I slapped my face again.

Clary raised her eyebrows, but something made it look like she was only trying to raise one. "Did you get _any_ sleep at all last night?" she asked me. She jerked her chin up and signaled to Alec without an answering nod or anything she passed my best friend off to him, before coming to stand by me.

"Not really," I answered with a small half-smile.

Isabelle joined us.

"Ack!" Alec stumbled in the road. "_Jeez_! This girl is _heavy_ for a small person!"

"Mmiga nofag." Alicia grumbled and slapped Alec weakly over the head.

"Don't insult my friend," I replied. Yawn/slap. I looked around at our surroundings. Damn, I had definitely gotten us lost. I was determined to keep quiet about that, no one was going to find out, I'd get us back…. Once I can find the way back. Shit.

"Heavy!" Alec groaned.

"You're telling me," muttered Isabelle.

"Wimp," Jace called back to Alec.

"Oh"—grunt—"yeah? Let's"—grunt—"seeyoudoabetter"—grunt—"job."

Jace sighed, "Hand her over."

The girls and I sat back and watched this show of, let us say, bluster, with little amusement or interest.

"She's not _that_ heavy," Jace said hefting Alicia over his shoulder.

Clary and Isabelle snorted, "Give it five minutes."

(For your sake, let's fast forward five minutes, just because I don't feel like going through a frame by frame of the next five minutes of panicking I did trying to get to the school.)

"Oh good God, she _is_ heavy, somebody else's turn!" Jace yelled.

"Can't say we didn't warn you," Alec muttered triumphantly. "'Sides you wanted to take her."

"Whatever," Jace grunted.

"Well, we've all had her," Isabelle said. "She's the only one who hasn't." She waved her hand towards me.

"What's this about me?" I yawned before slapping my face again.

Jace moved toward me disengaging Alicia from his shoulder. Oh, crap.

I was awake in two seconds. I knew how heavy my friend could actually be, especially when she was asleep. I was running through multiple ways of waking her up, the thousands of tricks I had used in the past to jerk her out of dreamland to avoid such a predicament.

"What uhm, no, no you don't have to do that! It's fine really! I don't fee left out at all."

Blondie smirked evilly. Ooh, he was going to get it later. "Your turn," he said and then dumped by best friend in my hands.

"My spine!" I yelled. "Oooh, you guys are gonna get it sooner or later." I tried to take a step. I didn't even have the time to _think_ before Alicia was tumbling out of my arms and I found myself face first in a pile of mud.

"Aaah!" I heard Alicia crying. "SPARE ME!" I could imagine her throwing her hands up to protect herself from some invisible attacker.

"…"

Alicia coughed. "Um…are we…there yet?"

No, Alicia, no we are not.

I peeled my face from the ground slowly and wiped my face off with the palm of my hand. Now I had a new enthusiasm for our quest. Once we got to Redwood, demon ridden or no I'd be taking a shower. Immediately.

"Eeh? Impressive?" Alec raised an eyebrow.

I glared at him. I'm not the most athletic person with a full twelve hours sleep much less a mere zero. Still I needed to uphold whatever slivers of a reputation I may have possessed. "Say that again," I warned, "and eventually I'll show you just how impressive I can be."

If, at the time, I knew just how right I was, I wonder if I still would've said that.

* * *

For the next hour or so I amused myself by muttering torture methods for Alec in French under by breath. And for Blondie just because he was being a smartass and promptly after I threatened Alec to say "impressive" once more, he felt it was his duty to say what Alec couldn't. Damn them all. This was going to be a very long trip.

We'd gotten to Redwood in five minutes now that Alicia was awake. Turns out we'd been walking around the place in circles, and I'd gotten a good chewing up for it too.

I pulled my dorm key off the chain around my neck and unlocked the door. The room was painted a light blue and stained with sharpie, whiteout, and pencil markings that both Alicia and I were to lazy to erase, or we just didn't think it was worth the eraser. One half of the room was mostly neat, only the bed needed to be made. Two desks sat between the two beds (the other which was scattered with clothes and definitely hadn't been made in at least a week) both organized between them was a window that was surrounded with books stacked upon endless books.

My side of the room was messier. The sheet was scraping the floor at the foot of the bed because I never used it, and the comforter was tossed toward the wall. On the wall were a hundred different items. There were drawings of people I'd never seen and maps of places I'd never been or had made up myself. Alicia's side was neat but it was still ruffed up, with science and math books lying open on the floor.

"Nice place," Jace said, I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "What kind of books do you have?"

I pawed through my dresser drawers and pulled out a set of what I hoped was clean clothing. It was all white, skirt, shirt, hair ties, everything. "Eh, I dunno. Alicia what's some of the stuff we keep on the bookshelves?"

Alicia hopped up on my desk which was the only clean thing about my room, and it was still stained with hair dye and ink from exploding pens and sharpies. "There are a lot of fantasy novels up here; we've got the entire first edition Harry Potter's. Uhhh. Oh! I didn't know we had this," she pulled a hardcover from the shelf and tossed it to the floor.

"Well, you keep them occupied I'm taking a quick shower and then we can go check out the rest of the school."

"M'kay," Alicia was already paging through an old book of fairy tales I'd gotten for my tenth birthday from my folks. Last present they ever gave me.

I turned to Jace, "Keep her out of trouble." Then to the other Shadowhunters, "Keep him out of trouble."

"Don't worry," Alec said with a sigh and glanced over Alicia's shoulder to get a glance at the book. She passed it off to him and then began to give Jace the grand tour of the bookshelves of Morgan and Grey.

I locked the bathroom door behind me. Unlike our room our bathroom was an absolute pigsty. Alicia's toothpaste tube was on the counter near the toothbrushes, and when we were supposed to clean our bathroom last week neither one of us could agree on whose turn it was so we just ended up not doing it. Staining the counter were a couple of empty hair dye tubes, one was neon green and the other fire engine red. The colours of my highlights at the time. I examined my hair in the mirror as I cleared the dye away. The color was fading away quickly and I was really getting tired of the green.

I dug through the medicine cabinet and pulled out a couple more tubes of hair dye, they were unlabeled but opened so I knew I'd used them before.

I came out with some of my hair pinned up with barrettes and now stained with hot pink, electric blue and purple. It still is to this day.

I shoved on a pair of white combat boots and dusted off my hands. "I'm clean we can go now."

* * *

Jace heaved a bookshelf out of the way. "Well, one thing's for sure, that demon was pretty damn powerful."

That reminded me. "Um, I don't think it was a demon." I said.

"Well then Sherlock, what else could it be?"

I stepped over the door of Headmistress Fraser's room door. "Well," I raised my hand to my temple, "when we were in Ms. Fraser's office when the smoke was coming in, it didn't hurt us. Other than the door popping out and slamming me into the bookshelf it didn't do anything. Now," here I pushed two fingers to my temple and cocked my head to the side, "_if_ it were a demon, it would have wanted to hurt us. To my understanding. Um, if the it was just smoke, the buildup behind the door would have caused it to pop out and I just happened to be in the way.

"You came from the Vortex." I spun around and pointed at the Shadowhunters. "A Vortex is a hole in the space/time continuum. Something that big has gotta have some type of discharge. Magnetic or otherwise, well, what if this one has a magical discharge, and what if this one happens in the form of smoke. That's all this could be, magical discharge from the Vortex, because it dropped someone else off."

"…"

"You're crazy, you know that," Alec said.

"But she's the only one coming up with the theories right now," Jace replied, "and they do make sense."

I grinned.

And Alicia screamed.

The Shadowhunters and I burst through the doorway that lead to Headmistress Fraser's private quarters.

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" Alicia was screaming and pointing at something beside the bed out of our sight.

I ran up behind her, "What is it?" I asked just before she feinted.

I caught her just as she was falling down. Once her form was out of the way I saw what she had been screaming at. I felt my skin go even paler and my knees gave out from underneath me. "Oh! God! Guys!"

Jace and Isabelle were right behind me. "Oh dear," Isabelle stated. "Well, she got what was coming for her that's all I can say."

"Head-headmistress Fraser sh-she's…"

"Dead," Jace finished for me. "Dead, and gone, for about five hours I'd say."

I couldn't take my eyes off of the body. It blew my theory out the window. There was definitely a demon running loose in the streets. It had _killed_ my headmistress. I felt sick.

"C'mon," Jace hauled me to my feet and made me turn away. "Alec, Clary, get them out of here."

"What are you and Izzy gonna do?" Clary asked as she led me out and Alec had the misfortune of having to carry and unconscious Alicia again.

"See if we can find out what came through that Vortex after us."

I waved Clary off and stepped forward. "There's no point in staying anyway. We know something's come out of the Vortex, that's that. Whatever it doesn't matter, we should leave for New York, _now_. Whatever came out of that Vortex, there's a seventy-five percent chance they're following us, and we'll run into them again."

Alec sighed. "We're still broke."

I snorted, "Once Alicia wakes up we'll raid the kitchen, we do it all the time, why do you _think_ she weighs so much? We'll get enough for a few weeks don't worry. Then we'll steal a map of the US and head off to…wherever."

"…"

I stared Jace down sensing he would object but was surprised when he said, "Fine."

_Alons-y_.


	7. Chapter 6

_Okay so quick shout out to all the good people who may have stumbled upon this fanfiction. The whole thing sort of went down three months ago when I found myself really depressed because my favorite character of all time just dropped dead in front of me. Ever since then I've been facing a little bit of writers block. It doesn't help that I really kind of don't exactly know where this really is going…sort of. But anyways I apologize really hope you enjoy the new chapter and hopefully the next one will be out boatloads faster than this one was. Again I'm sorry. Also thanks for your reviews I hope you continue to keep reviewing because that would make me very happy and um…that's about it. Oh. Yeah, sometimes the chapters will originally be written in script format so I will have to go back and re-write them so if anything flows kind of choppily that's why. Any previously discarded thoughts will end up going in another authors note at the bottom of this chapter now I better stop rambling before this note becomes longer than the chapter itself. I'm fairly sure that's improper Fandom conduct…_

Chapter Six: "You Pompous Freakin' SHADOWHUNTER"

Kitchen raid. Check. Backpacks. Check. Shadowhunters. Ch-

Okay maybe not them yet.

While we still had access to a bathroom and indoor plumbing the Shadowhunters had insisted on taking advantage of them. Currently I was sprawled comfortably on my bed my hands pillowing my head. Alicia, giving into her OCD tendencies, was buzzing around the room picking up clothing and other wayward knick-knacks.

To my great annoyance this included _my_ side of the room. Now, there are reasons for the only semi-clean state of the entire room, the reason: I liked clutter and my organization system depended on it, if things were clean I sure as hell couldn't find a damn thing.

Alicia is OCD, this means she is constantly trying to clean my side of the room.

I am sarcastic-ish, and manipulative, and not modest, I am constantly trying to stop her.

In conclusion we constantly butt-heads.

"Lay off Alicia!" I yelled getting off my bed and pushing her away from my desk.

"I'm sorry!" she returned. "You _know_ I'm OCD!" Ah, one of her favorite sayings.

"I don't care!" I sat her down on her bed. "Stay."

"I'm not a dog!"

I snorted and returned to my bed. "Hey Isabelle?"

The Shadowhunter in question looked up from her examination of my wardrobe. "Hm?"

"Does Jace usually take this long in the bathroom? I swear he's as vain as any other girl I've met."

Clary let out a wild-sounding laugh from her position of hovering over Alicia's side of the bookshelf. "That rightly describes him."

"Stop talking trash about me." Jace entered the room yanking on a shoe and getting water droplets from his wet hair all over the place. "Now do we have a plan or what?"

I shrugged and pulled out a US map from one of the pockets of my backpack. "We head east towards New England. That's pretty much it."

"So no plan then?"

"Nah. Plans are mediocre."

* * *

"We should have planned better."

I sighed. "Yeaaaahhh, probably."

Alicia shaded her eyes with the side of her hand looking toward the glow of the setting sun. "So, where are we?"

I went and tugged the map out of Jace's hands. "Lemme see that for a sec." I brought the map close to my face. "Okay so I think we're on some random highway…er…I think we should go towards either Washington or California."

"What kind of logic is that?" Alec questioned.

"Er," I replied, "well I'm thinking we go either way and hop onto like I dunno I-10 or something. It's the best course of action…and it's also a little bit of a plan…"

"I thought you said plans were mediocre?" Isabelle scoffed looking over her shoulder.

I sighed in exasperation, "Either way they're helpful, now let's get going!"

* * *

"You're doing it wrong!"

"No you're doing it incorrectly!"

"You're folding it backwards!"

"Of course I'm not!"

"Jace you pompous freakin '_SHADOWHUNTER_ you're doing it _wrong_!"

_RIIIIIIIIIP!_

"Oh now look what you two have done!" Clary shouted throwing her hands in the air with exasperation.

Jace and I stared dumbly at the two halves of ripped map. One half was hanging limply from my hand and the other fluttering away dejectedly in the breeze.

"Perfect," Alicia grumbled. "We're not even twenty-four hours into this insane field trip and already our stolen map is taking the express route to California! Now what are we going to do?"

"Well obviously steal another one," Jace shrugged.

"Where?" I questioned tartly. "In case you haven't noticed we're in the middle of freaking _nowhere_!"

I flung my arms out and spun around in the middle of the empty road. There was a pause; no one made a sound as we all listened to the end of "nowhere" echo off into the distance rattling birds from their nests and only disturbing grasshoppers besides.

We'd been on the road for only three days and already everything was going to pot. I was a bit put off that this great cross-country adventure-journey-thing was not what it had been when I was fantasizing about it. Then again we had an evil freaking _smoke_ cloud running (or would that be floating?) after us, therefore it was an even _worse_ idea for Alicia and I to stay at Redwood.

"Sooo," Alicia said dragging out the word. "Let's get out of nowhere then."

I smacked my forehead.

Jesus Christ.

* * *

Meanwhile in some run-down southern California town a man named after February 14 kicked the bucket.

Now thinking that Valentine Morgenstern died would be wistful, in fact even if he had no one would believe it. Especially because circumstances would call for a quick natural death, like a heart attack; Valentine was too tenacious for that.

No, Valentine Morgenstern was _not_ dead by any definition—though there were many who wished death upon him. The reason for the peculiar wording of the first sentence (why would I say he kicked the bucket if he didn't die) was because saying he kicked "_a_" bucket, would have been incorrect. You see Valentine _knew_ things about this bucket. He knew its exact mass, weight, and how much it could hold.

He also knew how fucking _annoying_ it was.

He was not too sure at what point he actually began carrying the damn thing. He just remembered needing a place to store a couple of magical gadgets since they kept pouring out of his pockets. He bought a bucket because it was cheapest and he shoved his things into it.

Yes, he knew things about this bucket.

So it wasn't just _a_ bucket; it was _the_ bucket.

So, Valentine kicked _the _bucket, literally. He was fed up with it. It kept swinging back and forth, annoyingly knocking against the backs of his knees every time he shifted his weight ever so slightly. Holding the handle only made his palm get sweaty and forced him to change hands, which then made his other palm get sweat and so on and so forth. And not only did it make the hand he was holding it with get sweaty, it also made the arm he was holding it with ache. He was used to pain, but, like all humans, he liked to avoid it when he could.

So needless to say, Valentine was _fed up_ with this bucket. He was on a mission. He needed to get to a group of unfortunate teenagers that may or may not be responsible for the predicament he was in. They were definitely the reason why all of his careful planning would go to pot.

But he'd planned for that case too. He was prepared. It wouldn't happen.

He didn't need a stupid bucket getting in his way.

He stared at the offending blue plastic with a manic glare on his face. He'd stopped at a shabby inn for the night and the bucket had taken to making a strange rattling noise every time the heater came on. It was fraying his already shot nerves.

He was ready to slash it right in half with the seraph blade stuffed in his boot.

However he still needed someplace to stash his stuff.

With a loud huff he flopped backwards back onto his bed and vowed that next time he passed through a town he'd sell the damn thing and get a backpack instead.


	8. Chapter 7

_Okay. I have no excuse for my long absense other than really poor planning on my part. This fic wasn't really planned but now I think I have a smidgen of an idea of where this is going. Nothing happens in the chapter sadly but the next one might pick things up a bit. I'm really, really, really, super sorry I haven't updated in sooooo long but well...better late than never right? Please don't kill me. Thanks to all of you who reviewed and well, I present you with Chapter Seven of the epic adventure of Lydia Morgan and Alicia Grey._

* * *

Chapter Seven| The Filler Chapter

I was not surprised at all to find our situation not getting any better. I was surprised however to find that it had gotten marginally worse. It had been a few weeks since we last lost our map and we were currently trekking alongside the closest interstate we could find.

"Okay," Alicia yelled over the roaring of the cars, "who else is thirsty?" She raised her hand and looked inquiringly at all of us.

Her backpack sat askew on her shoulder and her hair hung limply around her shoulders. Alicia had been wearing the same pale pink top and faded skinny-jeans for the past three days; she looked more than a little disheveled.

Not that the rest of us fared much better. My white shirt was sticking to my back and probably had grass stains around the edge of it. My black boots were grey around the edges from all of the highway dust and my knees were skinned to bits and pieces. Isabelle's hair was not perfect in any way, and her jeans had a giant hole in one knee. Clary's shoes had worn down so much she'd started to complain about the sole coming off and the red long-sleeve she wore was stained with sweat. Alec was skinned up pretty badly himself and Jace…well he was the only one who still looked mildly respectable.

All in all our outward appearance, for the most part, conveyed the desperation of our situation.

"Me," I answered Alicia. "But we're sort of broke and I'm not stealing anything." We'd survived by stealing supplies every once and a while. The last of the stolen supplies had just run out yesterday.

Jace grinned definitely seeing an opportunity to tease *wheeze**cough*torture*cough**hack* someone. "What?" he asked me. "You chicken?"

I sighed. "No it's just that I'm tired and it's your turn to steal crap. I always do it."

He made a face. "Screw you."

"You volunteering, or do I have to force you?" I retorted. "I honestly have nothing better to do at the moment."

Everyone laughed at that.

"I'll bet you don't," Isabelle muttered.

Alicia sighed. "Oi! Lyd get your mind out of the gutter! We've got bigger things to worry about."

I bent over, grabbed a stick, and chucked it at Alicia. It hit her in the side of the head and got stuck in the frizz of her hair. "Ow!" she complained.

"Kiss my ass," I snorted.

"No freaking way!" she yelled back.

I rolled my eyes. "What's the bigger thing that we need to worry about?" I asked.

Alec gestured to the sky, "It's almost dark. Either we find a place to camp, we hitchhike, or we just keep going."

I looked around. We were a ways away from the highway but not far away enough so that we'd get lost if we walked a little farther away into the trees. On the other hand we hadn't really gotten anywhere the past two days and if we continued it we might be able to cover more ground.

"I say we continue," I voted.

"Hell no," Clary muttered. "I vote hitchhike, or we camp."

"One or the other Fray," Jace grinned. "I agree with Morgan. We haven't gotten anywhere these past forty-eight hours."

Clary shrugged, "As long as we do either of those two choices I'm fine with it."

The other two Shadowhunters exchanged glances.

"Er," Alec began, "I think Jace and Lydia are right. We need to get to New York before that demon or whoever sent it catches up with us."

Isabelle shrugged indicating that she would probably be fine with whatever. She didn't talk much to the rest of us. Mostly she kept to herself and stated her thirst for excitement by sending glares my way and probably imagining my slow, painful demise by her own hand. I'm not going to pretend that I had no idea why this was, or that she had no justified reason for wanting to kill me. I'm a very conceited person when I feel like it. And by no means am I modest. I am one of those people that get on everyone's nerves rather easily. It's not my fault…well okay, actually it is my fault. But I was sort of compensating for the fact that my parents never gave a damn about me. Very early off I figured that if my parents never cared, than nobody ever would; so I decided that I would like me and care about me as much as possible.

I think I'd managed that goal pretty well.

So, suffice to say, Isabelle was very reasonable in not wanting to speak to me, and hating my guts because I'll tell anyone who asks (and even those who don't) when you are absolutely _stuck_ with someone you don't particularly like in the first place they tend to try your patience. Exactly the reason why I hated Blondie. He was pretty much everything I hated about myself personified into someone else, and according to Alicia one me is hard to handle, now all of a sudden there were two.

Clary and Jace began arguing the point something I had more or less gotten used to. Alicia and I exchanged a glance.

"And here we go again," I muttered.

Alicia shrugged, "What're you going to do? They're siblings."

I rolled my eyes I guess in agreement. At the time I think I was just to exasperated with the whole damn situation to do much else. I yawned, bored with the scene around me and eager to get moving again. The faster we moved, the quicker we'd get there, and that meant good food and shelter. That was enough for me to grip Alicia's wrist and start towing her against her will down the side of the highway ignoring the other's arguing.

"Morgan where're you going!" Blondie cried out.

"New York," I shouted back. "Feel free to tag along!"

"Lydia let go of me!"

I lugged Alicia for about half a mile before I finally got tired of her pathetic beating against my forearm and shoulder. Well admittedly she had started to do some damage, my arm was blotched with red, irritated skin that she had beaten.

"Honestly Lydia," Alicia growled rubbing her wrist. "You could've yanked my arm off."

I grinned. "But I managed to restrain myself, you're fine, you'll be alright."

I distinctly remember her mumbling something that sounded like "back glass" under her breath. I chose to be the bigger and better person and not call her out on it. I really could care less.

We had stopped somewhere along the border of some state or another. I wasn't too sure, I had stopped paying attention. We were at a truck stop. It was an old run down little building with rust stains on the tin roof and the white paint peeling away from the boards of wood showing the ugly rotted colour brown beneath.

Isabelle walked out of the gas station looking more refreshed than she had going in, but she was still pretty scruffy—as were the rest of us. Without a word she handed us bruised corner store fruit and candy bars from her purse courtesy of the fire-finger discount.

I peeled back the peel on a banana and got to work eating around the browning spots. It was nasty, but I was hungry.

Alicia nibbled on the corner of a Snickers bar. "Are we going to hitch a ride with someone?" she asked. "Sneak on the back of a truck bed, or ask?"

I turned to the Shadowhunters. "How about we get some answers?" I decided. "Okay, I'll buy that magic exists, hell even the existence of supernatural creatures, because while that is completely crazy, I've seen proof. What I was to know is how you got here in the first place."

"If we knew how we got here than we'd know how to get back," Alec commented. "Since we don't know that we're still here."

"Alright forget I asked that question," I said waving my hand in front of my face like swatting away a fly. "Let's try this one: What is a Shadowhunter? What do you guys do?"

"Long story," Clary sighed leaning against the side of the gas station. "I don't even understand it."

"Well we've got time," I said, "I mean we're not going to get to New York overnight without extreme luck."

"We're not supposed to say anyway," Jace said cleaning the dirt from underneath his fingernails. "Mundies are not supposed to know." He smirked.

Clary snorted. "Who're you kidding Jace, you've broken every rule there is to break." She shook her head. "From what I understand a long time ago an Angel fused his blood with that of man's and then made a select few humans drink it and then that was how the Shadowhunters came into existence. Afterwards they were charged with keeping the Earth safe from demons that sneak in from other dimensions."

That actually made sense.

From what I'd seen this past week I expected some outlandish thing that made no sense at all.

"Wait," I requested, "so does that mean that God exists?"

Jace cut in before someone could say anything, "No. It doesn't mean anything. I've never seen an angel. Just because demons exist doesn't mean that angels do too."

Well, isn't someone the little optimist.

* * *

We entered Nevada in record timing.

"I'm gonna die," Alicia complained.

I was just about to drop down in a dead faint myself. "I concur."

"Let's rest," Clary agreed.

No one had any objections.


End file.
